Date of Testimony: July 15, 2025

‘Alaa Mahmoud Suleiman Abu Moawad, 39, a resident of the Bedouin village north of Gaza, now forcibly displaced in Gaza City.

I am a simple Palestinian man. I used to live in the northernmost part of the Gaza Strip, specifically in the Bedouin village, an area bordering the Israeli occupation, where danger surrounds us from every side and is ever-present in our lives. My family and I resided in one of the most threatened and dangerous areas in the Strip due to its direct proximity to the Israeli side. Despite this, we tried to live as normal a life as possible amidst a daily reality fraught with fear and deprivation.

I am married and a father of five children: Ghazal (15), Maya (13), Odai (10), Ghina (8), and Mohammed (3). My children, like other children in Gaza, do not know true safety and are growing up under siege, aggression, and frequent interruptions of basic life necessities. Nevertheless, we always hope for a better future where our children are granted their right to a safe life, education, and dignity.

We lived a simple and modest life in a small, single-story house where my brother, Suleiman, and I resided. We built that house with our own hands and hard work over many years of toil, striving to create a safe haven for our families amidst a harsh reality.

I worked as a taxi driver within the Strip, trying to provide for my children and family despite the scarcity of work and difficult circumstances. Life was never easy; unemployment was widespread, and poverty had become a heavy guest in every home in Gaza even before the latest war erupted.

Despite all this, we never despaired. We tried to live in peace and cling to life, even though the Israeli occupation never left us a moment without threat or provocation, especially in our residential area adjacent to the border. They would fire bullets at our homes from time to time, sometimes randomly and sometimes deliberately, as if to constantly remind us that we live on land where they do not want us to remain.

Even with this harsh reality, we carried an unyielding hope in our hearts and clung to life with all our strength, for our children and for our right to live with dignity on our land.

We would evacuate our residential areas during every military escalation between the Israeli occupation and Palestinian resistance factions, fearing death or injury. These forced displacements were not a choice but a necessity for survival. We were forced to flee repeatedly from one area to another, searching for a safe place to protect us and our children from the fires of war that discriminate between neither civilian and fighter nor between home and battlefield.

Every time we left, we left behind a piece of our memory, knowing that we might not return. The journey of displacement meant starting anew in a temporary place that guaranteed nothing but temporary survival. Despite the bitterness of displacement, we clung to what remained of our lives and tried to preserve our dignity in unbearable circumstances.

The Beginning of War and Displacement

The war on the Gaza Strip caught us by surprise on the morning of Saturday, October 7, 2023. We woke up to the sounds of rockets, artillery shells, and intense shelling that brutally targeted homes, destroying them over the heads of their residents. From the very first moments, a mass forced displacement began as residents rushed to leave their homes in search of survival.

At that moment, I realized that staying in our home was a death sentence for me and my children. We know very well from previous wars that our border area becomes the heart of the battle from the first moment, transforming into an open field for death and direct targeting.

I had no time to think. I quickly gathered what I could of our belongings, some clothes for my children, important documents, and essential items for survival. I left behind the home of our lives that my brother, Suleiman, and I had built brick by brick after years of hardship.

I grabbed my wife’s hand, lifted my daughter Ghina into my arms, and we ran amidst the sounds of shelling and explosions and the screams of children around us. We left everything behind, carrying with us only a slim hope of survival.

After leaving the Bedouin village, we first headed to the Jabalia camp, where we took refuge in the Abu Hussein school, which had been opened to receive displaced people. The school was crowded with thousands of families like ours, all fleeing death, searching for a moment of safety amidst the chaos. But we could not bear to stay there for more than five days due to the extreme overcrowding and the lack of the most basic necessities of life.

Forced Displacement to Rafah

We were forced to continue our journey of displacement southwards. We headed to the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, to the city of Rafah, specifically to the Joint Primary School located in the Tal al-Sultan area. We walked dozens of kilometers on foot in an indescribably exhausting journey, carrying our children and dragging our tired feet in search of a place to protect us from the shelling.

We arrived in Rafah completely exhausted, pinning our hopes on finding some of the safety there that we had been deprived of in the North. We stayed in the Joint Primary School in Tal al-Sultan for approximately eight months, living under constant shelling, with death pursuing us from every direction. Israeli warplanes never left the sky, bombing and destroying mercilessly, while famine besieged us from another side due to the closure of crossings and the prevention of any humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip.

We lived eight months of oppression and humiliation, relying on the few aid supplies distributed by the school administration, which belongs to UNRWA. They barely sustained our young children.

I didn’t have a single penny in my pocket. I had nothing to offer my children, not even their simplest needs. I tried repeatedly to find a job or any means by which I could provide a piece of bread or a can of milk for my son Mohammed, but to no avail. All roads were blocked, and all doors were closed.

We remained in Rafah until May 6, 2024, when the Israeli occupation army announced the start of a military operation to invade the city from east to west. Drone planes began dropping leaflets threatening us to leave our displacement areas, warning against staying in the operation zones. Then, intense shelling began to sweep through the city, especially artillery shells that fell randomly on neighborhoods and buildings without distinguishing between people or stone. I found myself then facing two choices, both leading to death: either stay and die under the shelling with my family, or flee aimlessly and penniless, without even the fare to transport my children and me to a safer place.

Displacement to Deir al-Balah

I decided to carry my children and walk with them, hoping we would escape the death machine. We walked tens of kilometers amidst exhaustion and fear until we reached the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. There, we found a small camp set up in an area known as “Al-Masha’leh” west of the city. The camp administration welcomed us and helped me set up a simple tent where we live today.

Exhaustion was evident on my children’s faces, and fear never left their eyes. But the question that broke my heart and for which I found no answer was always repeated by them: “Baba, why do they want to kill us? What did we do?” I swear I cried in front of them, the tears of a broken man who had no answer and nothing but a hug to embrace them and silence to apologize for this cruel world.

We remained in Deir al-Balah, living the same suffering that accompanied us since the beginning of the war, as if oppression was destined for us wherever we went. Unbearable living conditions: no shelter to protect our children from cold or heat, not enough food, and no potable water.

I would stand for long hours in lines, patiently waiting to get a single meal to satisfy my children’s hunger. And I would stand in even longer lines to get a bottle of water while my children sweated under the scorching sun, exhausted from fatigue and hunger.

Return to the North

We remained in this state until January 19, 2025, the day a ceasefire was announced between Palestinian factions and the Israeli occupation. It was an indescribable moment, an overwhelming joy swept through our hearts, we cried from sheer happiness. Finally, we would return to our homes from which we were forcibly displaced after tasting the humiliation of the camps, the oppression of displacement, and the pain of prolonged poverty.

The journey back began a week after the announcement. We were not allowed to use any transportation, so we walked tens of kilometers on foot along Al-Rashid coastal road, a long and exhausting journey during which we suffered from hunger, thirst, and heat until we reached Gaza City.

From there, my family and I headed directly to the Bedouin village in the far north of the Strip, to our home… the home of our lives… our home that we had long dreamed of returning to. But oh, how I wish I had never arrived, and how I wish I had never seen what I saw. I found our house completely destroyed. Nothing remained of it… no wall, no roof, no stone, just black ash on the ground, as if there had never been a house or life there. And when I approached the place to check what remained, an Israeli tank began to fire heavily at us to keep us away, a clear message: this land is no longer yours. The occupation had completely taken over our area and turned it into a military barracks. I stood there in shock, unable even to cry. Where would I go now? Where would I raise my children? What would I tell them as they looked at me with tired eyes, waiting for shelter and a future? What future awaits them under a tent?

I had no choice but to set up a small tent at Sheikh Zayed roundabout, north of Gaza. I lived there with my wife and children, waiting to see what would happen so I could return to my home. But our joy was not complete even with the ceasefire. It was only weeks before the Israeli occupation army announced the resumption of its war on the Gaza Strip on March 18, 2025. Warplanes returned to the sky, artillery resumed shelling, and death pursued us again. There was no longer any safe place; even our simple tents were not spared from the shells, as they began targeting displaced people in every corner, especially in the North.

One night, the indiscriminate artillery shelling intensified from all directions, and drone planes fired bullets over our heads. I had no escape but to flee with my children in the darkness of the night, like all residents of the area. We left behind the tent we had obtained after much hardship and the humiliation of asking, and ran on foot until we reached Al-Jalaa Street in search of shelter. We slept under the Al-Zaharna building, using the sky as our blanket and the ground as our pillow until kind people donated a tent that we set up there. We continued to suffer from thirst, no work, no food, no water, except for what kind people gave us. Every day, we died a hundred times from humiliation, need, and the pain of war.

Famine and Aid Trucks

As days passed, famine swept across the entire Strip. Flour became scarce, food became rare, and markets dried up of anything edible. People ran after a bite, a loaf, a bag of flour to keep their children alive. The price of a single bag of flour reached more than 2000 shekels, and I, like others, did not even have the price of one kilogram of it. I saw my children starving, and I was unable to bring even a speck of flour into my tent.

In early May 2025, the occupation began to allow a very limited and controlled number of aid trucks. They controlled their route and distribution location to openly humiliate us. Drivers were forced to stop at specific points under occupation guard while thousands of hungry people crowded around them. I was one of them. Hunger drove me to those places. And there, the Israeli occupation planes would begin to fire live ammunition from the air at the crowds, causing dozens of innocent people, whose only crime was hunger, to fall dead.

My Injury Resulted in Leg Amputation

On June 15, 2025, one of my neighbors in the tents told me that aid trucks were arriving in the Al-Twaam area, north of Gaza. I decided to go, hoping to return with at least a bag of flour for my children. I arrived at 6:00 PM. The crowds were in the hundreds, even thousands. Men, women, children, all hungry, waiting for the trucks. As soon as the trucks stopped in front of the destroyed Andalos Tower, people began to push forward. Suddenly, quadcopter drones flew over our heads and began firing live ammunition directly at the crowds. Then, in a clear attempt to inflict the largest number of casualties, one of the drones fired a missile into the midst of the crowds.

I was in the heart of the place. I felt a violent explosion, and people flew around me, bodies bleeding and faces covered in blood. No one was carrying a weapon; we were all there for a livelihood. I fell to the ground. I saw blood covering my body. I felt the burning pain tearing at my right leg. The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was my bloodied body and people fleeing around me, running from death. I later woke up on the floor of the reception department at Al-Shifa Hospital. Those around me told me that they had carried me there after I bled for three hours on the ground. But even here, I found no mercy. I lay on the floor for six full hours; no doctor came near, no nurse asked. I screamed and pleaded with them, “My leg hurts… the bleeding won’t stop…” but there was no answer.

Some nurses told me, “There are no vascular doctors, and there is no treatment. You have to wait, maybe one of the remaining doctors will come.” Every moment that passed, my condition worsened hour by hour. My family was desperately searching for a way to save me in a destroyed hospital where nothing remained… no doctors, no equipment, no treatment.

After a long struggle of pleading, waiting, and losing hope, my family decided to transport me themselves. There were no working ambulances, and no fuel was available, so they carried me on a stretcher and walked until they reached Al-Quds Hospital in Tal Al-Hawa. We arrived there, but I only stayed for half an hour. The doctors told me, “You need an urgent platinum plate insertion surgery, and you have internal bleeding in your leg, but there are no platinum plates, no facilities, and no empty operating rooms.”

They could do nothing, so my family took me back to Al-Shifa Hospital and placed me in the surgery department, which was like a ruin, without walls, without beds, and without the slightest necessities of a hospital. I stayed there for a whole week, my brother visiting the doctors daily, hoping to find someone to save me, and every day he returned with the same answer: “There’s no one, no specialist doctors, no medicines, no operations, not even a sound room.” I lay on the hospital bed for a whole week without any medical intervention, without surgery, or treatment.

Leg Amputation Without Anesthesia

On June 21, 2025, they performed an X-ray and then said, “If there were facilities, if we had an operating room, and if there were medicines, we could have saved your leg. But now it’s too late.” They told me that the infections had spread dangerously in my leg and there was no solution but to amputate it so that the infection would not spread to the rest of my body.

In a scene I will never forget as long as I live, and without even anesthesia to relieve my torment, they took a medical saw and began cutting off my leg in front of me while I screamed, cried, and pleaded with them to stop. I screamed with all the remaining strength in my chest: “For God’s sake, stop! Please, anaesthetize me! People, have mercy on me!” But there were no facilities, no medicine. I then lost consciousness and woke up hours later to find myself in bed, but without a leg.

In a single moment, my life ended. My future was lost, and I was no longer able to move or even provide food for my children who were waiting for me in the tent. To make matters worse, my poor condition and wound infections continued to worsen due to the lack of treatment and medicines.

On June 27, 2025, they performed another scan and said, “We need to cut an additional 5 centimeters because the infections are spreading, and if we don’t, they will extend to the leg’s nerve and the rest of your body.”

On the same day, the doctors cut out the infected areas from my leg, but the suffering did not end. I am still living in the pain of waiting, pleading daily with every humanitarian organization, every human rights institution, and everyone who hears my voice to extend a helping hand and assist me in traveling to receive treatment outside the Gaza Strip.

The doctors frankly told me that there is no place for my treatment here amidst the ongoing genocide, the collapse of the healthcare system, and the destruction of all means of life. There are no facilities to treat me or even to relieve my pain.

I am now lying in a room on the second floor of the kidney dialysis building at Al-Shifa Hospital, suffering for long hours from pain due to the lack of painkillers, and even fever reducers have become scarce or missing.

Recently, I developed painful bedsores on my back that are worsening day by day, especially since I am prohibited from moving or turning over for fear of reopening the leg wound, which could cause dangerous bleeding.

But I am still here because the Israeli occupation army has closed the Rafah crossing and maintains military control over it, preventing any patient from traveling outside the Strip and leaving us to die a slow death here.

Over the past few days, I have not eaten any food that could help my body repair or recover, as food is either completely absent or, if available, its prices are exorbitant, beyond our means.

My wife tries desperately to bring me something to sustain me, and sometimes she only finds a few falafel balls and a tomato, without even a piece of bread.

What pains me more than my wounds is the hunger of my children; they suffer from hunger daily, and I am helpless to feed them, and this breaks my heart the most.

From here, I appeal to everyone with a living conscience to provide the minimum amount of food for me and my children so that I can regain my strength and continue treatment, and to provide a safe and urgent mechanism for my travel outside the Gaza Strip to complete treatment and have a prosthetic limb fitted, which will help me move and live with dignity.